Author: Jenni

So, I know you’ve all seen photos of the Grand Canyon. The thing is, there is something about the Grand Canyon that just can’t be appreciated unless you’re there, in person, witnesses it in the flesh! It’s like the canyon jumps out at you in four dimensions when you’re there. It’s pretty surreal.

Anyway, months ago my good friend, Lorea, suggested that we go on a hiking trip in May, before it gets too hot. We found a bunch of cool articles on the web about hiking the Grand Canyon and planned out own trip!

We spent day one hiking into the canyon and then camping along the Colorado River. It was amazing! Along the way there are a ton of people riding donkeys or mules down or up the canyon. As hikers, we felt a big smug about navigating the canyon on our own two feet 🙂

The Colorado River is a powerful river that offers plenty of great swimming spots, especially after a hard day of hiking in hot temperatures! Lorea and I found some great swimming spots, threw on our bathing suits, and let the cool water wash away our aches and pains.

That night, some park rangers held an interpretive walk through the park with ultra violet lights. What could that be for, you ask? Well, as it turns out, the Grand Canyon is filled with SCORPIONS that come out at night!

Turns out that the scorpions have something in their shells which makes them glow under ultra violet light. So, the park rangers took us through the park and shined these lights on the ground – revealing hundreds and hundreds of scurrying scorpions all around us! It was freaky but cool at the same time. Definitely made us very careful not to let any sneaky scorpions into our tent when it came time to hit the hay!

We spent the next day hanging out around the bottom of the Grand Canyon and enjoying some day hikes. There is also a great lodge at the bottom where they serve up plenty of great food. We didn’t bring much in the way of food (mostly lots of pasta and lightweight food), so it was great to enjoy some more fulsome meals!

We then spent day three hiking up out of the Grand Canyon. This was definitely the most challenging part of the hike! As difficult as it was, we were sad to leave. The Grand Canyon is such a magical place and we would have loved to stay longer. Oh well, there’s always next May! 🙂

Have any of you ever spent some time in the Grand Canyon? Let me know in the comments below! 🙂

Mediation has become much more popular and mainstream in the last few years and for that I am truly grateful! I always struggled to meditate during shavasana during my yoga practice and often found my mind wandering. I’ve always wanted to get better at this and at the recommendation of a dear friend, I downloaded a guided meditation app on my phone to help my practice.

I now practice everyday for 10-15 minutes, usually before bed. The guided meditation is great because it always helps brings my mind back to the present moment with his gentle voice and suggestions. I will admit I still struggle with wandering thoughts, but practicing for a short period each day is definitely improving my practice and my resilience.

I’ve only been using the app for about three weeks but I am thoroughly enjoying it and look forward to using it each night! I highly recommend guided meditation if you’re anything like me and find complete silence too challenging for a beginner. The app I used is called HeadSpace but there are many other apps out there to try as well! It you give it a try, please let me know what you think! I plan to write a follow up post in a few months to update everyone on my progress.

For many years, I have incorporated juicing into my diet to to nourish my body and mind with healthy vegetables on the go. Juicing has become a popular trend and for very good reason! Studies show that only 1/3 of Americans eat more than 3 vegetables a day and 2 or more fruits per day. Yikes! Juicing, however, can help even the healthiest of us consume the extra vitamins and nutrients from plants our bodies so desperately need in a very convenient way.

There are many juice recipes you can find on the internet, but below are the staples I include in every juice as my base. I then sometimes add one or two additional vegetables to change the flavor or drink it as is for a healthy afternoon snack.

I make my juices with 90-95% vegetables and 5-10% fruit to limit the sugar content. Even though sugar in fruit is considered natural, it’s still important not to have too much or your blood sugar levels will be out of balance which can lead to headaches, dizziness, and dehydration.

I recommend starting with a lot of leafy greens to your juices for an extra nutrient punch – my favorites are a large handful of kale, romaine, chard, or spinach.

Many nutritionists swear by the benefits of carrots, so I always add one large carrot to my juice.

Lemon and ginger both have amazing detoxification properties! I add half a lemon and a 1 inch piece of ginger to my juice.

Cucumber and celery lend a mild taste and lots of great antioxidants so I add half of a cucumber and 3 stalks of celery.

Lastly, I add one apple for a bit of sweetness, otherwise you might find the juice to be quite bitter.

And that, my friends, is my daily juicing base! I love this on its own or with beets, tomato, red cabbage, orange, or pear.

I truly believe that by incorporating even one vegetable packed juice into your diet a week, one can change their health for the better. After you’ve made that a habit, try drinking more freshly pressed juice every week!

There may finally be a reason to look forward to Monday mornings at the office!

Based on recent trends and developments in building standards, workplaces may soon be becoming more conducive to supporting the health and wellness of employees.The WELL Building Standard is the first building standard that focuses on combining work with wellness in an effort to support the health of employees that spend their time in the building.

Happily, this building standard has started to attract the attention of even the most financially conservative of companies given that an increase in employee wellness has been shown to increase a company’s success through greater productivity and employee morale. In practice, a building with WELL Certification (in that it complies with the WELL Building Standard) would ensure natural light rather than electric lighting, higher internal air quality, excellent temperature control, and comfortable acoustics, including through the use of white noise machines to reduce background noise.

Studies have shown that employees in such an environment are more alert, enjoy better sleep, feel less stress and distraction, and are less likely to catch colds or suffer from other illnesses.Other features include ergonomic sit-stand desks and filtered water hydration stations interspersed throughout the workplace to encourage better hydration.

The universal goal is to create an environmental that supports healthier behavior in employees.When you consider that most employees spend more than half of their waking hours in an office, it’s odd that most office spaces haven’t been designed with the health and wellness of employees front of mind. It’s so refreshing to see modern workplaces evolving to better support health and wellness!

I recently read a scientific study with a fascinating conclusion: listening to certain sounds can relieve physical and emotional pain.

Researchers from the Human Pain Research Group at the U.K.’s University of Manchester ran studies which induced alpha waves in the human brain in order to combat pain. Alpha waves are one of the five different types of frequencies in the brain — the others include delta waves, theta waves, beta waves, and gamma waves. Alpha waves have been shown to be linked to calm and reduced anxiety.

In the study, participants were subjected to pulses of light or sound at certain frequencies which have been shown to generate alpha waves. Participants who had received alpha wave stimulation reported experiencing significantly less pain than those who had been exposed to a placebo non-alpha wave brain stimulation.

I recently bought my own singing bowl from a local company called Shanti Bowl, which has a great FAQ which explains how to use a singing bowl in meditation. Interestingly, singing bowls have been shown to create alpha waves in the human brain and have long been used to heal physical and emotional pain. This looks like another case of modern medicine finally catching up with ancient health practices!

I recently read an interesting article in Vogue about Michelle Obama and her emphasis on always putting health and wellness first. She shared some great thoughts!

As the First Lady says, women need to do a “better job of putting themselves higher on their own ‘to-do’ list.” In particular, women “need to keep an eye on their physical and mental health, because if we’re scurrying to and from appointments and errands, we don’t have a lot of time to take care of ourselves”.

Michelle Obama also recognizes that exercise has benefits beyond keeping your body in shape – it keeps the mind healthy as well. As the First Lady says, “exercise is really important to me—it’s therapeutic.” “So if I’m ever feeling tense or stressed or like I’m about to have a meltdown, I’ll put on my iPod and head to the gym or out on a bike ride along Lake Michigan with the girls.”

The First Lady also views health as “multifaceted”. In her words, “it’s physical, it’s internal, it’s my diet and my emotional state—it’s all tied in together.” Put another way, good health depends on keeping both the mind and body and balance.

It’s great to see such excellent health and wellness philosophies coming from the First Lady! What an excellent role model for new generations of women and girls.

I’m Jenni, and this is an online magazine for people passionate about health and wellness. I believe that wellness is the greatest wealth of all. Join me to discover and share new ideas, experiences and tips for leading a happy and healthy life!